


330. peter pan is not a boy anymore

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [17]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Peter Pan Fusion, Gen, Neverland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m growing up,” Sarah says to the girl in green.</p><p>(…who was always a girl, of course, and never a boy. Boys don’t understand growing up the same way girls do. Boys have different sorts of things to run from.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	330. peter pan is not a boy anymore

“I’m growing up,” Sarah says to the girl in green.

(…who was always a girl, of course, and never a boy. Boys don’t understand growing up the same way girls do. Boys have different sorts of things to run from.)

(“Come with me,” said the girl in green. “Flying tastes like gold, and smells like cinnamon. Do you want to grow up, and go working and shopping? Do you want a husband who snores? Do you want your belly to grow big with babies?”

“No,” Sarah said, sitting on the other side of the windowsill, feet inside, feet on the ground. The girl in green sat on the edge of the windowsill. Her feet hung out over the drop.

The _no_ was only partially true. Part of her wanted to never grow up, and be a pirate, or possibly a dragon. Part of her wanted – well. A family. Not like the family downstairs, that shouted and didn’t quite have enough food.

The girl on the windowsill, dressed in green, had said _come with me_. No one ever wanted Sarah to come with them.

You could have a family without being grown-up, she thought. That seemed about right.)

“No you’re not,” says the girl in green with perfect assurance. She is slicing a mango with a sharp, wicked little knife. Just moments ago she’d flown down from the treetops with three of them, black fairy buzzing wicked rattling circles around her head. She had given one to Sarah. Sarah has no knife, though. So far she’s just watched the girl in green slicing the mangoes open. And now she’s speaking.

“I am,” she says. “I’m taller than you.”

The girl looks up, wide-eyed, and in a bound and golden shimmer she’s hopped over to Sarah. She yanks Sarah up to standing. It’s true: Sarah has a good half-inch on her, where before they were exactly the same.

“Sarah,” says the girl, looking terrified, “women are not allowed on the island. Only girls, and pirates.” There’s an angry scorpion-rattle from over the girl’s shoulder, and she adds: “And fairies. Or. One.” She frowns. There’s more angry rattling, and she flicks a slice of mango off her knife in the fairy’s direction before turning back.

“So,” she says, like it’s obvious, “you are not a woman. You just—” her voice grows limp on the last syllable. “Grew.”

Sarah swallows down a lump in her throat, crosses her arms tightly across her chest, and tells herself she isn’t going to cry. She feels like she didn’t always have to cry this much. She’s feeling so much, now, all the time, and she bites down hard on her lip so that she doesn’t let a single tear out. Tears confuse the girl in green. Sometimes she tries to lick them.

(“Are you scared?” she asked, dangling her legs off the treebranch she and Sarah were sitting on. She watched the tears on Sarah’s face, and – there – pressed her finger to one, put it in her mouth. “Oh,” she said, seemingly forgetting that she’d asked. “It tastes like salt.”

“I’m not scared,” Sarah said with a child’s stubborn temper. “I’m happy.”

“Is that what you do, when you’re happy?” said the girl in green.

“Sometimes.”

“Oh.” And the girl in green inched a little closer on the tree branch, plopped her head on Sarah’s shoulder with a complete lack of nerves. “I am happy too.”)

“I want to go home,” she says, aiming for courageous and not making it at all.

“This _is_ home,” says the girl in green, stubbornly. She drops the mango, like she’s bored of it. That’s the way she is. She gets bored of things.

(But not Sarah.)

(That’s an important part of this story: never Sarah.)

“I want—” Sarah tries again, and the girl in green stomps her foot on the ground, tantrum-mad.

“This is home!” she yells. “Do you think anybody back there cares about you? Do you think they would miss you? Do you want the smelly grey smog, and a hungry belly? Do you want to _grow up?_ ”

“Maybe I do!” Sarah yells, and the world goes shocked-silent. Sometimes she thinks the girl in green owns the whole island, like she dreamed it up. Like they’re all living in her dream, all of these lost girls.

The girl in green shakes her head, frantic; her hair billows around her like a stormcloud. “No,” she says. “No, no, you said you would stay. You _said_.”

(She had. Said. They’d flown to an island rock and the girl in green had sat down, feet dangling out over all that empty space. She said: “You’re my favorite. Did you know?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said, sitting down next to her, “like you don’t say that to every single other lost girl on this bloody island.”

But the girl shook her head, quiet, like she had learned how to be scared. Like Sarah had taught her. “No,” she said in a soft little voice. “Just you.”

Sarah believed her. She wasn’t really sure why. She nudged her shoulder into the girl’s shoulder, and the girl nudged her back and said: “Would you be my sister?”

“What?”

“I heard,” she said with perfect assurance, “that people have these sometimes. That they are like friends, only more than that. I heard they are like other halves. Would you be mine?”

“You want me to be your family,” Sarah said, voice shaking. She stared out across the water. The sky was so blue, that day, like the girl in green had told it to be and it had listened to her. Like a story. Like a dream.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Sarah said. “I’ll – I’ll stay, then. And I’ll be – your sister.”)

Sarah starts crying, hot angry tears. “Take me back,” she says. “If I stay here I’ll grow up, and you’ll have to watch, and it’ll be awful. Take me back.”

The girl in green shakes her head again. “No,” she says. “No, no, if you want to leave you will have to go yourself. I will not help you leave me.”

“I don’t know the way,” Sarah says softly. “I only know how to get here – second star to the right, yeah? But I – I don’t know how to _go_.” She’s still crying. She sniffles, a little. The girl in green – her eyes are so dry. So bright. It’s strange that she knows how to be angry but not how to be sad. Then again: maybe not that strange.

“Nobody goes,” the girl whispers. She pauses, and then says it: “Don’t go.”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Sarah says.

The girl reaches out and touches Sarah’s face. She has to stand up on her tiptoes, now. That wasn’t always true, but now it is – so true that it hurts.

“You’re my sister,” she says. “My only one. Don’t go.”

When Sarah doesn’t say anything, the girl in green sighs. She looks sad, now. Sarah wonders if she’s taught the girl that too. What a legacy she’s leaving behind her. Fear and sadness and being alone.

“Okay, Sarah,” says the girl in green. “Okay.” She takes hold of Sarah’s hands, too tight. And then they’re flying.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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